Kitchen Chaos

Sometimes you start thinking about a food you enjoyed as a child and want to recreate that. Even a quick version of it, just something to give you a taste of the childhood comfort food. The other day I was in Sams and saw a 4 pack of canned salmon which led me to thinking about the salmon croquettes we ate when I was a child. I loved them, it was one of my favorite meals – not that I was a picky eater, I liked most anything my mom cooked. It wasn’t one of my dads favorites, I am not sure why. Maybe it wasn’t something he grew up eating. I am not sure why I have such a vivid memory of this,  it is strange the stuff you remember from childhood. Anyway, most of the recipes I have seen call for crackers or bread crumbs crumbled up with the canned salmon and maybe some egg as a binder. Crackers aren’t gluten free but corn chips are. Those little crumbs at the bottom of the bag (that are too small to dip in the guacamole) are perfect. Because I didn’t know how it would turn out...

After all that whining about having to make pizza because I promised but didn't feel like it - I didn't make it that night. We had gotten some bad news about my Dad's health and I was crying to hard to focus on making pizza. So tonight I made pizza. Actually I made three. I wanted to compare two Bette Hagman recipes to see which one we like better. And it seemed to be a better taste test to have them side by side. Get it? The third? The third . . . well . . . its like this, cooking pizza on aluminum foil is just so much quicker cleanup-wise. And for one of the pizzas it worked great. Absolutely perfectly. The other pizza not so much. It might as well have been super-glued to the foil. I could not get them separated. So I quickly threw together the third where I used a wheat flour recipe and just substituted sorghum flour (instead of the wheat) and added an egg to help bind it. Honestly it was my favorite (although it does need a bit of tweaking - maybe ...

Last night we tried out the gluten-free offerings at Olive Garden and enjoyed it. Well, mostly. My six year old always gets cheese pizza because he loves cheese pizza. He also loves ravioli. And gnocchi. And garlic bread. But none of that is gluten-free at Olive Garden. Now he did clean his plate without any coercion on our part but that may have been because I promised, promised we would make pizza today. Ahem. I thought about it, decided that there was nothing big going on today, we could do it. Then he said "and ravioli too?" and I said we would try but I was only going to promise pizza. Then after we got home, the cold I have been fighting off won. By the time I went to bed, I couldn't breath through my nose and my chest hurt. I then apparently slept wrong because my left arm aches all the way from shoulder to fingers, my joints ache and I am running a fever. And I have to make pizza. But first I have to find a recipe. I could try to back out of ...

Have you tried these? Oh. My. Goodness. These are good. They taste like real, regular cookies. These are the first non-mix Pamela's product that we have tried and they are seriously good. Crispy, crunchy, full of yummy flavor. They didn't have the odd taste that so many gluten-free products have. Yum. I tried to convince my kids that they were awful so I could have them all but that didn't work. Darn it. They weren't fooled at all. They also have chocolate chip ones but I haven't tried those yet. But if they are anything like these, they are also really good. Per FTC regulations: I have no connection to Pamela's, I have never received anything from them, I bought these cookies at full price from the store.

Last night I was gonna cook but we had 2 doctor appointments that day and a 4-H meeting and I procrastinated. So we got out of 4-H at 7:30 and I had a splitting headache and . . . and . . . and Chic-fil-A was on the way home. Although they don't really advertise it, Chic-Fil-A is a great place to get safe food. Their fries and hashbrowns are gluten-free and fried in dedicated friers - not the ones the chicken are fried in. They have the chargrill chicken that is gluten-free and is good on the salads - I LOVE the chicken and fruit salad. They also do the kids meals with the chargrill (although it isn't on the menu, you have to ask). So the kids and I went in to place our order, they were not really crowded and by the time we had figured out our order, we were the only ones ordering. So I ask for the kids meals with chargrill and she asks "Do you want the sandwich, nuggets or tenders?" I tell her the kids can't have bread so she asks if they want strips, nug...

To be honest, cooking is not my favorite thing to do but there have been a couple of things I wanted to try and so I did them today. For lunch we had acorn squash and polenta lasagna . Oh yes, we did. It was something I have wanted to try ever since Katrina at GlutenFree Gidget posted about it. I even mentioned it to Hubby but he looked at me like I had grown another head. He is not that adventurous with food. But I was excited because I love, love, love winter squash, Katrina used butternut which is my favorite but I had an acorn squash wanting to be used. Since we are diary-free as well as gluten-free I couldn't figure out what to so for cheese because lasagna isn't lasagna without cheese. Right? The cheese was not missed because there was a yummy faux ricotta layer. And the noodles were not missed because polenta was used instead. A nd the kids requested I make it again, and maybe even make it for dinner. And my kid who hates onions, corn meal (corn in any for...

I tried some buckwheat gross groats yesterday and I must be missing something. I don't know what the problem is but they were awful, nasty, burnt smelling (and no I didn't burn them). I tried with sugar but then it was like burnt, bland cookies. I thought about dried fruit but that didn't help either. Maybe they have to be mixed with something to be good but I don't see how they could improve the taste of anything. It was kind of cool though watching them in the pot of water, sort of like those sponges encased in a gel capsule - Grow A Dinosaur sort of thing. I don't want to eat those either.